Chuck Sweeny: Hi, we're from the government and we're here to help you

Monday

Jan 20, 2014 at 5:15 PM

So, the federal government is going to send some feds to Rockford to help City Hall cut through red tape the federal government created, in order for the city to get federal government grants that will require the city to comply with a plethora of federal regulations to use the money.

Rockford has been picked by President Barack Obama to be one of seven economic doom-and-gloom zones to which he plans to provide special help in the form of an economic SWAT team of bureaucrats to coordinate and streamline the complicated process of getting federal grants for the ol' Forest City.

Yes, friends, we've been put an another one of those lists we don't want to be on. By the president, no less!

It all makes sense to me, in a convoluted way, of course. You see, a long time ago, in a galaxy far away, I wrote grants on the fifth floor of City Hall (before the renovation.)

And after doing this for several years, I became tired of writing fiction and joined the news business, where we report on that government fiction.

Why do I say fiction? Because the whole grant process is backward. You have to obfuscate the reason you want the money in order to satisfy the many requirements of the grant. It's like constantly forcing square pegs into round holes.

Let's say the city has too many poor teenagers without work in the summer. Bored kids are more likely to get into trouble than those who are working. Once a teen has a criminal record, he's not likely to land a job.

But let's say the federal government has money to provide kids with summer jobs. City Hall says, "Hey, let's get some." However, when you examine the myriad regulations - hoops you must jump through to get the money - you realize that there are so many restrictions, caveats and "subparagraph Z's" governing use of the money, you won't be able to use it on most kids you want to employ.

If the kids were already in trouble, it might be easier to get federal money to employ them for the summer. Or, if their families had no money at all, maybe the government money could help them. But if their families have too much money and aren't in trouble, forget about it.

Federal and state grants extract a heavy price. They demand the abdication of local decision making. They make our local governments mere extensions of the U.S. government and the state of Illinois.

Think of how many times we hear from school leaders, mayors, county leaders, "The federal regs say we can't do that."

If states and the U.S. are to give out money, they should cut their own red tape and their one-size-fits-all regulations and use block grants that give localities the leeway to tailor the money to their specific, reasonable needs. That way, City Hall could write a grant to a federal agency saying, "Here's the problem. Here's how we intend to solve it. Here are local resources we're committing to it. We'd like X dollars from your agency to use in the following way ..."

With appropriate but not overbearing monitoring, the feds and the state might get more bang for their bucks.